Some advise needed, threatening emails from a ebay member

Hey Guys

Just had a rather vindictive and quite scary email from someone off ebay, and looking for some advise on what to do about it

Basically i sold the guy a set of speakers, less than a hour after the courier drops them off to him, he files a dispute with paypal saying they were knockoff goods, which they were not

So i respond to the paypal dispute straight away saying that to my knowladge they were the real deal, and that was that, 5 days have past and i have heard nothing from paypal or the buyer whislt they look into it, thing is, even if i wanted to refund him, firstly he has made no effort to return the item to me, and secondly paypal have frozen the funds in my account anyways, so i cant touch the money until they finish their investigation

then this afternoon i recieve this email from the guy

I have reported him to ebay and sent them a copy of the message, as they have a form to fill in if you do receive threats, but what do i do next, as ebay will probably do fuck all, do i respond to him? contact the police? yeah it might be a idle threat, but do i really want to take that risk, this has really shook me up, i dont really fear for my own safety as i can usually handle myself, but with a wife and 2 kids in the house its them i worry about

[FONT=arial,sans-serif]
i am going to tell you once and once only
i am giving you 24 hours to refund my money other wise i am going to get in my car and i am going to drive down to you house and really really hurt you and i meant hurt you .you are playing games with the wrong person i have spent 6 years in jail because of a cunt like you before and i dont fucking care if i have to do it again you have been told
weather you listern or not is up to you[/FONT]


I have reported him to ebay and sent them a copy of the message, as they have a form to fill in if you do receive threats, but what do i do next, as ebay will probably do fuck all, do i respond to him? contact the police? yeah it might be a idle threat, but do i really want to take that risk, this has really shook me up, i dont really fear for my own safety as i can usually handle myself, but with a wife and 2 kids in the house its them i worry about

Any advise? anyone else on here received threats like this?

SSS

 

Contact the police mate, he could be playing games himself, but I wouldn't take any chances, especially considering the recent events with people getting knifed all around the country...

You have written proof of the threats, the police should listen. Ebay won't give a shit...

Or tell him to send the speakers back and then refund him.

 

Well i would offer him a return on them, even though i did put in the auction no returns or refunds (as i do with most auctions these days to cover myself) but the problem is paypal have frozen the funds in my account whilst they look into the claim, and feck knows how long thats going to take, and i dont have any spare money in my account to refund him at the moment (because i am unemployed and basically flat broke at the moment until the sort my disability claim out)

Have just called the police and they are going to send someone out to the house tomorrow to take a statement and copies of the email, i have also given them his address etc as well

Usually i dont give into intimadation, but when its threats like this it does make you very warey

 

i think he's just playing games, but you never know. and the police and/or the system itself react more serious about such cases now. a good step to tell the police.

keep us informed what will happen...and have a bat/club/knife handy, cause you never know! (yeah, i am a security fanatic)

 

Defending yourself in the UK doesn't seem to fly anymore.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...ested-for-chasing-away-youths-with-plank.html

 

wow...that's...urm...sick?

 

Hes likely trying to scare you into keeping the item + the speakers. So call the police give them all the details and try to get them to talk to him. Once they have had a chat i bet everything will get cleared up. I would still lock up nice and close the windows though lol

BTW how much were the speakers?

 

Well i've had a few phonecalls now with the police, as well as i have spoke to paypal on the phone, the woman i spoke to from paypal was quite helpful, and without her giving too much detail away, she hinted that the guy didnt have a leg to stand on with regards to the dispute

As for the price of the speakers, i sold them for £130, whilst not a huge amount of money, it would still be a struggle for me to raise it at the moment, specially as he has not even hinted at returning the speakers back to me

I was advised by the police not to email the guy back, and they would deal with it when i see them tomorrow to make a full statement as well as give them copies of the original email as well as his address etc

I have calmed down a bit now from earlier as i was quite paniced about the whole thing, but just to be on the safeside i have told the wife and kids not to answer the door to anyone and to fetch me first unless they know who is there

I really didnt want to make this much fuss about it, but the police are taking it very serious it appears so hopefully this can be resolved,

Normally i am not very easially intimidated, but there is something about this whole thing that puts me on edge, and i think im just going to refund the guy and sod getting the speakers back, i would rather refund him the £130 back than worry about the wellbeing of my family

 

Report the incident to the police, and wait three years. And then get to court with it and then if everything goes well. Then your family and you will be under surveillance from the persons "friends" . That was it what happened with my knife threat case.

 

I'm not sure how well this would work. I sure as hell wouldn't care about a £130 set of speakers after 3 years, and he's probably worried about his family's well-being this year.

It sounds like the guy is just trying to spook you, but you definitely did the right thing in calling the police and Paypal. Bonus points if they show up at his house and arrest him. Threatening someone over some speakers is all kinds of special-ed.

 

I think what you did was the right thing, you never know who you're dealing with, maybe it's a real psycho or just a fuckin' asshole who's trying to keep the speakers and get the refund. Anyway you shouldn't try to find out what it is and as soon as possible make the refund (even if you don't get the speakers back, it will give you peace of mind and you won't have to worry about your family), or do as the police says.
Down here in my country stuff like that happened a couple of years ago with local pickups of sales through auction sites or the newspaper buy & sell section. That was some really nasty shit.
Anyway, putting your family's safety first (as you are doing) is the right thing.
Hope you can sort it out, keep us updated.

 

Didds, you still have his email? You still have his address? Then if he spent 6 years in jail the Police will already know him and go round and caution him. You can ensure that you get a restraining order served which would mean that if he came within a specific distance of you or approached your property (or any of the family) then he would be prosecuted and / or taken into custody.

Let's face it, it seems to be the nutter ramblings of a silly ass and which hardened criminal actually A) provides a written confession B) warns you in advance. He knows where you live, if he was that bad, he'd just turn up with a couple of mates.

My instinct suggests it's just someone pissing you around. However, er on the side of caution and call Crimestoppers and ask for advice.

**Edit** just read other parts of the post - so I am pretty much just stating the same thing.

 

These incidents tend to end up in court and get laughed out by the judge. He'll let the pensioner free and be very critical of the Police for allowing the matter to clutter up his case load and waste valuable court time / public money!

 

from the title i thought this would be a GoH thread :O

btw, the jail story is a classic macho man thing. He's just fucking with you, really. No criminal in their right criminal mind would leave a recorded threat.

 

The guy is a wanker. What kind of speakers? car speakers? A loser buys speakers like that off ebay and probably can't tell between a peak 400watt car speakers and a true 400watt continous load speaker is.

thats why whenever I do a paypal transaction and receive the money, I immediately transfer the money from paypal to my bank incase dipshits like him try to pull a fast one on me.

Do what paypal says, forward that email to ebay and post it on paypal's dispute, even take a screenshot of that email on your desktop as proof, do not simply copy and paste it.

 

Well i wouldnt refund him just yet. Plus if hes really a crazy person i dont think the refund will make it much better if he then gets a knock from the police.

What i mean is if the police talk to him and hes not crazy hes gonna leave you alone refund or no refund. Now if he is crazy i doubt the refund will make a difference.

 

The few things I've sold have been sent with no sender information.

If the buyer does something like this, walk to the police station, write a denuncia / sue (I don't know the right English word) providing all his information, payment information, home address, phone number, etc, and send him a photocopy of the sue.

I doubt he'd move a finger.

 

so i've heard the uk is full of douche bags, is that true?

 

Well, thanks to the UK population being lower than that of the USA, we thankfully don't have nearly as many as you. :thumbsup: